understanding executive functions

Understanding Executive Functions

Adele Diamond, PhD, FRSC

Canada Research Chair Professor of

Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience

University of British Columbia (UBC)

[email protected]

‘Executive Functions’

refers to a family of mental

functions that are needed

whenever going ‘on

automatic’ would be

insufficient or detrimental.

The 3 core Executive Functions are:

• Inhibitory Control (self-control)

• Working Memory

• Cognitive Flexibility

Higher-order Executive Functions are:

• Problem-solving

• Reasoning

• Planning

Inhibitory control is by far

the greatest challenge for

young children, so I’ll spend

the most time on that.

(1) Inhibitory control of attention

enables us to inhibit distraction &

selectively attend, focusing on

what we choose and suppressing

attention to other stimuli

SELECTIVE or FOCUSED ATTENTION

such as screening out all but one voice

at a cocktail party

(2) Self-control: resist temptations, think

before you act, inhibit acting impulsively:

resist grabbing another child’s toy

resist blurting out what first comes to mind

resist ‘tit for tat’ (hurting someone

because that person hurt you)

resist jumping to an interpretation of what

something must have meant or why it was

done

resist indulging too much

(3) resisting the many temptations

not to do your assignments or

finish what you started

stay on task despite boredom,

initial failure, interesting tangents,

or tempting distractions

DISCIPLINE

Discipline accounts for over

twice as much variation in final

grades as does IQ.

(Duckworth & Seligman, 2005)

Children with less inhibitory control (i.e.,

children who were less persistent, more

impulsive, and had poorer attention regulation)

as adults 30 years later have…

worse health

earn less

and commit more crimes

than those with better inhibitory control as

young children,

controlling for IQ, gender, social class, & home

lives & family circumstances growing up

across diverse measures of inhibitory control.

That’s based on a study of 1,000 children born

in the same city in the same year followed for 32

years with a 96% retention rate.

by Terrie Moffitt et al. (2011)

Proceedings of the Nat’l Academy of Sci.

They conclude that “interventions that achieve

even small improvements in [inhibitory control]

for individuals could shift the entire distribution

of outcomes in a beneficial direction and yield

large improvements in health, wealth, and crime

rate for a nation.”

(b) Working Memory:

Holding information in mind

and mentally working with it

Working memory is critical for

making sense of anything that

unfolds over time, for that always

requires holding in mind what

happened earlier & relating that

to what is happening now.

relating one idea to another

relating what you read (or learned /

heard) earlier to what you are

reading (learning / hearing) now

mental math calculations

understanding cause and effect

remembering multi-step instructions

& executing them in the correct order

being able to easily & quickly switch

perspectives or the focus of attention,

flexibly adjusting to changed demands

or priorities,

being able to think outside the box.

(c) COGNITIVE FLEXIBILITY

For example, try to think of as

many uses for a TABLE as you

can.

What are all the things you might

use a table for?

A table might be used to write on or to

eat food on.

It might be turned on its side and used

to keep a door closed or used as a

shield against snowballs.

You could get under it to hide or to keep

dry.

You could dance on it.

You could cut it up for firewood.

c.1) Creativity

• Coming up with new ideas,

hypotheses and Inventions.

• If one way of solving a problem

isn’t working, how else might we

succeed? Can we think outside the

box to come up with a entirely new

way of attacking this that no one

has ever considered before?

c.2) Flexibility

• Seeing opportunities and seizing them:

I was planning to do X, but an amazing

opportunity has come up to do Y, do I have

the flexibility to take advantage of

serendipity?

• My opinion was X, but now that I see this

new information, I’m able to change my

opinion.

• Being able & willing to change course

when it seems you were wrong

When one door closes, another

door opens;

but we often look so long and so

regretfully upon the closed door,

that we do not see the ones which

open for us.

- Alexander Graham Bell

An example of poor

cognitive flexibility:

When a student isn’t grasping a

concept, educators often blame

the student: “If only the student

were brighter, she would have

grasped what I’m trying to teach.”

But we need to be flexible enough

to try different perspectives….

… to realize our own role in the

learning process and that different

people learn in different ways. If a

child isn’t getting something:

What might I, the teacher, do

differently? How can I present the

material differently, or word the

question differently, so that this child

can succeed?

We can also change the focus of

our attention by changing

whether we are focusing on what

others are doing wrong to

focusing on what we might be

doing wrong or how we might

respond to the problem

differently.

What do we want for

your children?

What I want for my children is that….

• … they should be good people,

caring and compassionate.

• … they should be happy; leading

fulfilling & meaningful lives.

• … they should be successful in the

careers of tomorrow.

What will it likely take to

be successful in the

21st century?

What will it likely take to be successful in the

21st century?

1) Creativity

• Coming up with new ideas, hypotheses and

Inventions.

• If one way of solving a problem isn’t

working, how else might we succeed here?

Can we think outside the box to come up

with a way of attacking this no one else has

considered before?

2) Flexibility

• Seeing opportunities and seizing them:

I was planning to do X, but an amazing

opportunity has arisen to do Y, do I have

the flexibility to take advantage of

serendipity?

• My opinion was X, but now that I see this

new information, I’m able to change my

opinion.

• Being able & willing to change course

when it seems you were wrong

3) Self-control

Having the self-control to…

• think before you speak or act

• not put your foot in your mouth

• not do something you might regret

• resist temptations

• give a considered response instead of

an impulsive one

4) Discipline

Having the discipline to stay on task…

seeing it through to completion despite

some aspects being tedious or difficult

being able to stay focused despite

distractions

continuing to work at something though the

reward may be a long time in coming

ALL of the above are

“Executive Functions”

or rely on them



(including being able to switch perspectives

& see things in a new light)

• Inhibitory Control

(which includes self-control & discipline)

• Working Memory


• Problem-solving

• Reasoning

• Planning


• Inhibitory Control (self-control)

• Working Memory



• Problem-solving

• Reasoning

• Planning

= Fluid Intelligence

Why should we care about

Executive Functions?

Executive Function skills

are more important for

school readiness than are

IQ or entry-level reading or

math.

(e.g., Blair, 2002; 2003; Blair & Razza,

2007; Normandeau & Guay, 1998)

Executive Functions are also

important for school success

throughout the school years.

Improving EFs improves

academic outcomes.

(e.g., Blair & Razza, 2007; Espy et al., 2004;

Gathercole et al., 2004, 2005; McClelland et

al., 2007; Passolunghi et al., 2007; Raver et

al. 2011; Savage et al., 2006)


critical for job success.

Poor EFs lead to poor

productivity and difficulty

finding and keeping a job (Prince

et al. 2007).


important for marital harmony.

People with poor EFs are more

difficult to get along with, less

dependable, and more likely to

act on impulse (Eakin et al. 2004).

Poor EFs can lead to social

problems

such as aggression, emotional outbursts,

& crime (Bailey 2007; Broidy et al. 2003; Moffitt et

al. 2011; Prince et al. 2007; Saarni 1999).

Early EF gains can reduce the later

incidence of aggression & anti-social

behavior (Nagin & Tremblay 1999).

EFs are core skills critical

for cognitive, social, and

psychological development,




mental and physical health,




mental and physical health,

and success in school and

in life.

Adults may not appreciate

how inordinately difficult

inhibition is for young children

because it is so much less

difficult for us.

Congruent

Push Left

Push Right Push Left

Push Right

Incongruent

HEARTS & FLOWERS

HEARTS – CONGRUENT Each time you see a HEART, press with the thumb or forefinger on the SAME side as the stimulus. For example, if the heart appears on the left, press with your left hand. Remember:

PRESS ON THE SAME SIDE AS THE HEART

FLOWERS - INCONGRUENT Now you’ll see a flower. Press on the side OPPOSITE the flower. For example, if a flower appears on the left, press with your right hand.

(Here, you’ll need to inhibit on every trial the natural tendency to respond on the same side as the stimulus) Remember:

PRESS ON THE SIDE OPPOSITE THE FLOWER

HEARTS & FLOWERS-MIXED: Now you will sometimes see a heart and sometimes a flower. On only half the trials will you have to inhibit the tendency to press on the same side as the stimulus, BUT you’ll have to switch between the same-side and opposite-side rules.

The rules stay the same:

For HEARTS, press on the SAME side.

For FLOWERS, press on the OPPOSITE side.

HEARTS – SAME SIDE

FLOWERS – OPPOSITE SIDE

It is not that children forget the rules.

Indeed, children often call out the

correct higher-order rule on trials in the

mixed condition (e.g., “same,”

“opposite,” “opposite,” “same”) even as

they are making errors.

The problem seems to be in quickly

translating the rule into the correct

response.

It is not enough to know the right

thing to do, you need to get yourself

to behave accordingly.

Sometimes children know the right

answer but cannot demonstrate that

in their behavior.

60

70

80

90

100

4 5 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 26

Pe

rce

nt

Co

rre

ct

Hearts and Flowers Task: Accuracy

Stimuli presented for 2500 ms Stimuli presented for 750 ms

Age in Years

Davidson et al. (2006). Neuropsychologia, 44, 2037 - 2078

Congruent Incongruent

Mixed

Adults

60

70

80

90

100

4 5 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 26

Pe

rce

nt

Co

rre

ct

Dots Conditions: Accuracy


Age in Years

Davidson et al. (2006). Neuropsychologia, 44, 2037 - 2078


Mixed

The Mixed Block is much

harder for everyone -- adults

and children of all ages are

slower and less accurate on

the mixed block.

It’s not that hard to keep doing what

you have been doing, even if that is

counterintuitive or counter to your

initial inclination.

What’s hard is to flip back and forth

between doing one thing and

another.

60

70

80

90

100

4 5 6 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 26

Pe

rce

nt

Co

rre

ct


Age in Years


Mixed

At every age

studied,

children were

slower & less

accurate on

the Flower

block than on

the Heart

block.

That effect is completely absent in adults.

Hearts and Flowers Task: Accuracy

Even very young children have

excellent memories, however.

Inhibition is a far greater chal-

lenge for them than holding

information in mind.

Abstract Figures - Center Presentation

Push Left

Push Right

Increasing demands on

INHIBITION (the Flower block

vs. the Heart block) is more

difficult for children (ages 4-9

years) than increasing demands

on how much information they

must hold in mind (2 to 6 items).

The opposite is true for us

adults:

Increasing MEMORY

demands is far more difficult

for us than increasing

demands on inhibition.

The costs associated with

increasing MEMORY demands

are greater for adults,

the costs associated with

increasing INHIBITORY demands

are greater for young children.

We adults may not appreciate

how inordinately difficult

inhibition is for young children

because it is so much less

taxing for us.

Cognitive Flexibility

appears years later than

working memory or

inhibition.

When sorting by COLOR,

Correct Response is the Blue Star.

Card to be sorted:

Model Cards:

When sorting by SHAPE,

Correct Response is the Red Truck.

Card to be sorted:

Model Cards:

3-year-olds sort the cards

perfectly

by either

color or shape

20%

70%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

3 Year Olds 4 Year Olds

Pe

rce

nta

ge

of

Ch

ild

ren

wh

o

Su

cc

es

sfu

lly

Sw

itc

h D

ime

ns

ion

s

but, very few 3-yr-olds

can switch how they sort

The child has clearly in mind

what the new sorting criterion

is and the appropriate rules for

that dimension.

BEFORE the stimulus appears

the child is all set to perform

correctly.

Then a stimulus appears

that is relevant to both

tasks, in incompatible ways.

That CREATES a problem,

triggering the mindset the

child is trying to inhibit.

The core problem for 3-year-olds in

switching appears to be:

Attentional Inertia

Once they have focused their attention on a

dimension, their attention gets STUCK

there. They need to disengage from, or

inhibit, their previous way of thinking about

the stimuli.

Helping Children Apply their Knowledge

to their Behavior on a

Dimension-Switching Task

Natasha Kirkham, Loren Cruess

& Adele Diamond

Developmental Science 2003

vol 6, pages 449-467

It is not enough to know

something or remember it;

you must get that knowledge

into your behavior.

Development proceeds by BOTH the

acquisition of knowledge and skills and by

the increasing ability to inhibit inappropriate

reactions that get in the way of demon-

strating what is already known.

A child may know what he or she should

do, and want to do that, but still not be able

to act accordingly.

Each dimension is an

intrinsic part of the

stimulus object.

What if both dimensions

are not properties of the

stimulus?

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

2½ -year-olds 3 -year-olds 3½ -year-olds

Age Groups

Pe

rce

nta

ge

of

Ch

ild

ren

Su

cc

es

sfu

lly

Sw

itc

hin

g D

ime

ns

ion

s

Integrated

Dimensions

Separated

Dimensions

10.5%

15.8%

12.5%

37.5% 35.7%

64.3%

Roughly twice as many pass separated

as pass integrated (3x at 3 years)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70

29.3 – 34.4 35.8 – 40.4 41.2 – 45.7

mean = 32.1 mean = 37.6 mean = 43.1

N = 19 N = 24 N = 14

Age in Months

Po

sts

wit

ch

P

erc

en

t C

orr

ec

t

10% 17% 18% 44% 41% 63%

*

* Roughly 6 months ahead

on Separated vs. Integrated Dimensions

Integrated

Dimensions Separated

Dimensions

Children’s performance on dimensional

change card sort task:

Separation aids ability to switch

dimensions

Adele Diamond,

Stephanie Carlson, & Danielle Beck

(2005)

Developmental Neuropsychology

vol 28, p.689-729

Patricia Brooks, Julie B. Hanauer, Barbara

Padowska, & Heidy Rosman

(2003)

The role of selective attention in preschoolers’

rule use in a novel dimensional card sort.

Cognitive Development

vol 117, p 1-21

Josef Perner & Birgit Lang

(2002)

What causes 3-year olds' difficulty on the

dimensional change card sorting task?

Infant & Child Development

vol 11, p. 93-105

Developmental Progression

Succeed at…. at Age

Reversals (intra-dimensional shift) 2½

- extra-dimensional switches (1 dimen. to another) -

DCCS - Separated Dimensions 3½

DCCS (Standard) - Integ. Dimen. 4½

DCCS - Mixed Block…………….... 7½

(switching dimensions randomly

across trials)

On the one hand, adults may

not appreciate how inordin-

ately difficult inhibition is for

young children because it is

much less taxing for us.

On the other hand, adults

are also more like young

children than we adults

would often like to admit.

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

First Dimension

Block 1 Second Dimension

Block 2

*

Percentage of Errors by Children of 3 Years on

the First and Second Dimension E

rro

rs

Adults show the same cognitive

biases that characterize infants

and young children.

Though, in adults, these biases

are more subtle and held more in

check. We are able to inhibit

them.

Adele Diamond &

Natasha Kirkham

(2005)

Not quite as grown-up as we like to

think: Parallels between cognition

in childhood and adulthood.

Psychological Science

vol 16, 291-297

Appearance-Reality

Tasks

SPONGE

Children have to hold in mind two

superficially contradictory things:

-- what an object looks like, and

-- what the object really is

PLUS

-- inhibit the perceptual pull to say that

the object is what it looks like it is

Adults pass those tasks, but a discomfort

with ambiguity and difficulty in seeing

both sides of an issue, or two

perspectives on the same thing, remains.

Even adults have difficulty accepting that

good people (or good nations) sometimes

act wrongly or that people who disagree

with us might be right about something.

“False Belief” Tasks

require holding in mind a true and a

false belief (the false belief being

what you had previously thought)

and inhibiting the impulse to want to

appear as smart as possible

Was Mr. Bun in the room when we moved his ball?

No.

Did he see us move his ball?

No.

Does he know that we moved his ball?

Yes.

Where will Mr. Bun look for his ball?

3-year-olds point to the CORRECT location, NOT the place where Mr. Bun last saw his ball placed.

Adults, too, show a tendency to

attribute what we know to someone

less knowledgeable.

We have difficulty inhibiting /

ignoring what we know when making

assessments about what someone

who does not know that would do.

Epley, N., Keysar, B., Van Boven, L., &

Gilovich, T. (2004). Perspective taking as

egocentric anchoring and adjustment.

Journal of Personality and Social

Psychology, 87, 327-339.

Keysar, B., Lin, S., & Barr, D. J. (2003).

Limits on theory of mind use in adults.

Cognition, 89, 25-41.

The Curse of Knowledge in

Reasoning About False Beliefs

Susan Birch and Paul Bloom

Psychological Science

2007

The Curse of Expertise: The effects

of expertise and de-biasing methods

on prediction of novice per for mance.

Hinds, P. J.

(1999)

Journal of Experimental Psychology:

Applied, 5, 205-221

Other “False Belief” Tasks

(which are not Theory of Mind tasks)

also require holding in mind a true and a

false belief (the false belief being what

you had previously thought)

and inhibiting the impulse to want to

appear as smart as possible

What do you think is in this box?

But crayons are what’s really in the box.

What had you thought

was in this box before I

showed you?

3-year-olds answer:

CRAYONS

Adults don’t claim that they

earlier said that crayons would

be in the Skittles box, but in

analogous situations they claim

that they earlier rated similarly

unlikely outcomes as more

probable than they actually had.

“knew it all along”

Fischhoff, B., & Beyth, R. (1975)

“I knew it would happen":

Remembered probabilities of

once-future things.

Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processe

13, 1-16.

Hindsight bias:

A by-product of knowledge

updating?

Hoffrage, U, Hertwig, R, & Gigerenzer, G.

(2000)

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition

26, 566-581

“Brain-based” does NOT mean

fixed or unchangeable.

Experience and activity change the

brain.

EFs depend on the brain --

but they can be improved

by the proper activities

“Executive Functions”

depend on Prefrontal

Cortex and the other

neural regions with which

PFC is interconnected.

Central Sulcus

Prefrontal

Cortex

Frontal Cortex

EF skills can be improved

even in very young children

without computers or highly

technical equipment

by properly trained teachers

9 yrs

13 yrs

17 yrs

back of

the brain

front

Primary Motor

Cortex

Primary Visual

Cortex Even at 20

years of age,

Prefrontal

Cortex is not

fully mature

Human Brain Development

Even those who believed that EF can be

improved, have doubted whether that could

be done as early as preschool since EF

depends on PFC, and PFC isn’t fully mature

until young adulthood.

(Analogy with leg length at 2 years and

walking and even running at age 2.)

Just because PFC isn’t fully functional,

doesn’t mean that it isn’t

functional at all.

Kovács AM, Mehler J. (2009)

Cognitive gains in 7-month-old

bilingual infants.

Proceedings of the National

Academy of Sciences.

vol 106, p. 6556-6560

Language aids EF development.

e.g., private speech – telling yourself

what you should (& should not) do

The cognitive skills most vulnerable to

(most affected by) SES differences are:

Language

EFs

Less advantaged children often start

school behind on both.

EFs, especially inhibitory control,

tend to develop earlier in girls than

in boys.

For little boys, it can feel like

torture to have to sit still to long

periods, and they can feel defeated

by their inability to do that.

Young children - especially boys - are

not built to sit still for long periods.

Preschool expulsion rates are 3 times

higher than for grades K–12, and 4.5

times as many boys as girls are being

expelled.

(Walter Gilliam [2005] survey of 40 states)

Feedback Loops

Consider the negative feedback loop beginning

with poor initial EFs:

Poor EFs lead to problems paying attention in

class, completing assignments, and inhibiting

impulsive behaviors.

School is less fun…

the teacher is always getting annoyed with you

& compliance w/ school demands is very hard.

Teachers come to expect poor self-regulation

and poor work, and the children come see

themselves as poor students.

On the other hand, children who

have better EFs are likely to be

praised for good behavior, enjoy

school more and want to spend

more time at their lessons. Their

teachers enjoy them and a self-

reinforcing positive feedback loop

is created.

2 feedback loops going in

opposite directions

one child wants out & does not

expect to succeed

one child wants in & fully expects

to succeed

Small differences at the

beginning can lead to

bigger and bigger

differences over time.

A little boy,

especially if he is at the young end of

the age group,

and especially if his language

development is a bit delayed because of

hearing problems

might benefit greatly from starting school

a year later

Finland – children start at age 7 – but way

outperform US children by 4th grade

Powerful Role of

Expectations (by others AND yourself)

and Attitude

Pygmalion in the Classroom -- powerful

role of expectations Robert Rosenthal

Stereotype threat - female performance on

math exams Claude Steele

“Treat people as if they

were what they ought to be

and you help them become

what they are capable of

being.”

– Johann W. van Goethe

Questions?

understanding executive functions

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